Through the perceptive lens of a 19th-century camera, a bygone world is momentarily brought back to life.

Deborah Berry with Field Camera

Deborah Berry with Field Camera

Using an 1860s French field camera, the author frames a shot in a hayfield on the fringes of Eastfield Village, a school in central New York that specializes in the teaching of 18th- and 19th-century trades, such as wet-plate collodion photography.

Don Carpentier

Don Carpentier

At age four, Don Carpentier asked for a hammer and nails for his birthday. This predilection came in handy when, at 20, he acquired an 1840s blacksmith shop from a farmer in Schodack, N.Y. After disassembling the structure, labeling each piece, and toting it to his family's farm, Don found he needed to expand his skills to refurbish that building and others he soon acquired. Finding no school specializing in pre-industrial trades, he started workshops in 1977. Don now teaches building conservation at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute during the school year and, with his wife, Denise, and their family, spends summers at Eastfield Village, where he runs its many workshops, which draw students from as far away as Paris and Alaska.